The Dalai Lama has said that Tibetans consider themselves "the child of Indian civilization" and that India is the "holy land" from whose sources the Tibetans have built their own civilization. What explains this powerful allegiance to India? In The Holy Land Reborn, Toni Huber investigates how Tibetans have maintained a ritual relationship to India, particularly by way of pilgrimage, and what it means for them to consider India as their holy land.Focusing on the Tibetan creation and recreation of India as a destination, a landscape, and a kind of other, in both real and idealized terms, Huber explores how Tibetans have used the idea of India as a religious territory and a sacred geography in the development of their own religion and society. In a timely closing chapter, Huber also takes up the meaning of India for the Tibetans who live in exile in their Buddhist holy land.A major contribution to the study of Buddhism, The Holy Land Reborn describes changes in Tibetan constructs of India over the centuries, ultimately challenging largely static views of the sacred geography of Buddhism in India.

Toni Huber is professor of Tibetan studies at the Institute for Asian and African Studies at Humboldt University, Berlin. He is the author or editor of five books, including most recently Nomads of Eastern Tibet.

List of Figures

AcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroduction

Part One: Locating and Dislocating the Land of the Buddha1 The Shifting Terrain of the Buddha2 Buddhist Knowledge and Anachronism in Tibet 3 Journeying to the Centre of the World4 Tantric Buddhist India and Its Tibetan Appropriation

Part Two: Reinventing the Holy Land in India5 Nirvanain Assam 6 Return to the Centre of the World 7 The Allure of the Atsaras 8 The Precious Guru in the Punjab

Part Three: Modern Rebirths of the Holy Land9 Archaeological and Discursive Rebirths of Buddhist India 10 Encountering the Modern Holy Land